October 27, 2005

Girl in Chinese village affected by bird flu dies

A girl from a bird flu-affected village in China has died from flu-like symptoms, Hong Kong newspapers reported Thursday.

He Yin, 12, and her 10-year-old brother from Wantang village in Hunan province, came down with high fever and flu-like symptoms on October 13 after eating a sick chicken, the Ming Pao Daily said.

He Yin died on October 15 in a children's hospital in the provincial capital of Changsha, the paper said.

Her brother was in stable condition and was treated in an isolated ward, the report said.

So far, there has been no evidence linking her death with the bird flu outbreak in Wantang village, which has killed 545 chickens and ducks there, the South China Morning Post said.

The outbreak in Wantang was the country's third outbreak of the disease in two weeks, following cases in Inner Mongolia and Anhui province.

Ming Pao Daily said the children's father, He Tieguang, failed to dispose of about 20 sick chickens and ducks he kept, after they died last week. The farmer had fed the sick fowl to his family, the report said.